Reinhold Wittig, the German game designer who spent decades championing the rights of board game creators, has died in Göttingen on 11 April 2026. He was 89.
Stop juggling Meetup, WhatsApp, and spreadsheets. One platform for your gaming group's events, RSVPs, and member management.
See how it worksWittig designed more than 125 games across a career spanning six decades, but his most lasting contribution sits on the front of nearly every modern board game box: the designer's name. In 1988, at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, he scrawled a declaration on a beer coaster: "None of us will give a game to a publisher unless their name is on the top of the box!" Thirteen designers signed it. That scrap of cardboard, now housed in the German Game Archive in Nuremberg, became the founding document of a movement that transformed how the industry credits its creators.
A geologist by training at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Wittig founded the publisher Edition Perlhuhn in 1976. His breakthrough arrived in 1979 with Das Spiel, a dice pyramid game that became a bestseller and earned the first of five "Beautiful Game" (Schönes Spiel) awards from the Spiel des Jahres jury in 1980. Four more followed for Wir füttern die kleinen Nilpferde (1983), Müller & Sohn (1986), Kula Kula (1993), and Doctor Faust (1994).
Looking for board gamers near you? Browse local communities and find your next game night.
Find events near youIn 1983, Wittig and his wife Karin founded the Göttinger Spieleautorentreffen, an annual gathering of game authors in Göttingen that became a cornerstone of the German design community. He is also credited with popularising the term "Spieleautor" (game author), a deliberate push to elevate game creators from anonymous craftspeople to recognised artists.
Wittig approached design the way he approached geology, through materials and objects. He famously built games and sculptures from scrap metal, car floor mats, and roasting pans. In 2020, the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design inducted him into its Hall of Fame.
The next time you pick up a box and see a designer's name on the cover, that is Reinhold Wittig's legacy.
Sources: Board Game Beat | ICv2 | BoardGameGeek
